


and on your list of things to do is make me fall in love with you

by bettercrazythanboring



Category: Morning Glories
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Alternate Universe - Skating, Casey POV, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 05:20:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2839475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bettercrazythanboring/pseuds/bettercrazythanboring
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Casey gets a brilliant science project idea: go watch cute girls train for a figure skating competition and quantify their skills in hardcore formulas and theorems.</p><p>  <i>(Or: Ice Princess AU with less drama and more gay.)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	and on your list of things to do is make me fall in love with you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moanna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moanna/gifts).



> Prompted at the latest MG [ficathon](http://blevins.livejournal.com/31466.html). I didn't listen to my instincts about how "NOTHING YOU WRITE EVER ACTUALLY TURNS INTO THE SHORT EASY DRABBLE YOU WANT IT TO BE AND YOU HAVE OTHER THINGS TO WORK ON, DAMMIT," so three and a half days later, here we are. (But I really wanted to write this, so suck it, instincts.)
> 
> [Title.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PeU1Djf74E)

When Casey Blevins, seventeen and blooming, nondescript backpack swung carelessly over her shoulder, golden waves swept out of the way in a plain ponytail, waltzes into the local ice rink as though she owns the place—even though she'd had to save up for three months just to own her own skates when she was nine, and it's her first time setting foot here since she'd given up on her dream to get lessons—the only thing on her mind is the unique spice this project will add to her college applications.

It's been just about the only thing on her mind for months and years now: get extra curriculars, keep the GPA pressed as hard against the roof as humanly possible, begin charming the most reputable teachers into glowing recommendations right out of the gate as a freshman, write a killer essay—the one she's been drafting since she was twelve—get a full scholarship, attend a decent school with a world-renowned physics program, graduate as one of the cum laudes, build a life for herself that her dropout parents never had, and at some point, if that life allows for it, win a Nobel Prize in Physics.

That's the plan.

(It's also the reason people who throw parties have stopped wasting paper in her locker, the reason guys infatuated with her wit and beauty are left wanting no matter how cute or persistent they sometimes are, the reason why it took her two weeks to realize that her best friend Tam had donated her entire closet and overhauled her style into something unrecognizable.)

The early June sun is still warm on her neck as she sits down on a cold bench facing the ice and digs out a worn camera that's witnessed everything from her first steps to her parents' twentieth dating anniversary last week. The practice session is already underway; she follows the movements of a short redhead who seems to light the ice on fire as she passes. She moves aggressively, fiercely, eyes generously covered in both black eyeliner and freckles, and Casey can practically  _see_  energy bounce off her. In fact, she halfway expects the girl to burn through the floor just by the sheer friction of her quick, agile movements.

Another girl skates in circles around her, and this one seems a lot more elegant and graceful. She moves like a roaring river down a mountain—fluid, flexible, powerful,  _dangerous_ —her baby blue dress flowing in her wake as though water splashed off her. It contrasts beautifully with her dark skin, and the same color ribbon decks the shiny black hair pressed into a sleek bun. There's a bandage on her cheek, but somehow it only adds to the look.

They skate and skate, and they exchange a few words that resemble best friend chatter much more than competitor trash-talk, and Casey's heart begins to simmer an ache over the dream she never got to fulfill and now never will because her life has no room for it—and when twelve minutes after she'd come in she decides it's probably enough material for now, it only has a little bit to do with the clenching in her throat that could turn into tears if left unchecked.

Just before the camera lowers, a metal door behind her swings open.

"Look, I'm glad you got laid and everything," says the girl who strides through, to a boy trailing behind her, "but I paid for that beer fair and square. Just because some girl decided to close her eyes and pretend you're Zac Efron for five minutes doesn't really give you the right to bail on a party I was planning for three weeks."

"I know, which is why I'm trying to reimburse you in full, because that doesn't normally happe—"

"But what you don't seem to  _get_  is 'full' doesn't really work for me," she clarifies with a grimace, stopping just a few feet from Casey and bending to put on her skates. The back of her outfit is nearly bare. "It would if you'd given me time to make other arrangements. As it was, I had to send someone to the  _store_ , which didn't even  _carry_  kegs, and we had to make do with bottles. Do you know how much more beer bottles  _cost?_ "

The guy rolls his eyes. "Yeah, and it's why I'm still in business—"

"Correction: it's why you'll still  _be_  in business." Zoe—Casey knows her name; of  _course_  she knows her name;  _everyone_  knows Zoe's name—flips her long hair back and crosses her arms. " _After_  you pay me back what I spent in the store. Or I'll tell everyone what an unreliable piece of shit you are." She turns and takes the few steps to the white field.

The guy runs after her. "But that's like  _twice_  what you pai—"

"Bapapa—" she stops him with a hand to his chest "—no shoes on ice. Rink rule." She smiles sweetly, but Casey can see her finger jabbing into the guy's ribs. "You've got one week," she declares. "And in the future, I'd avoid having sex in questionable motels before fulfilling contractual obligations. If it's worth having, she'll still be game half an hour later." Her eyes dart down his body. "And if not, you're probably better at jerking it anyway. More practice and all."

"Why, you—!" His fists clench at his sides. A vein pulses in his neck. "You don't even  _need_  the money."

Zoe shrugs carelessly. "I'm fighting for the principle. Ethics and all that other crap." She gathers her raven hair up in a ponytail and glances at Casey for a brief moment that makes the latter's heart leap. The other girl's thin lips are set in a harsh frown when she faces him again. "Your dick isn't the most important thing in the universe, Romeo. And this conversation is over. One week," she repeats, then glides over the ice in smooth curves that Casey would never have expected from her abrasive personality and utter lack of proficiency in gym—or perhaps, she supposes, just any  _team_  sports.

(Ah, yes, that's right; she once saw Zoe doing sit-ups as though they were magazine quizzes.)

She barely registers the guy simpering away, muttering fuming slurs under his breath, barely notices the camera hanging heavy from her hand. Zoe does a few laps and stretches and shakes her whole body out before sliding over to the other girls. The acoustics are surprisingly good here; Casey gets the impression that the guy, whoever he was, had been late and interrupted Zoe's training.

There should be some form of punishment for that, she thinks when the girl begins skating in earnest. Some karmic detention, perhaps, for depriving the world of that sight. (That she is the only person in the room who can see it but doesn't seem to have had the opportunity a thousand times already matters very little.) Her understanding of physics is better than that of some college professors, and yet she is quite certain, in this moment, that Zoe's act of dancing on ice must benefit everyone in the world in some invisible way.

She moves like lightning. Quick, precise, methodical, and yet chaos explodes off her in bursts—spots of color in her monochromatic outfit, coils in her zig-zag limbs. They come and go in the blink of an eye as though they might not have happened at all, and without even realizing it, Casey's eyes become glued to her for the chance of one more, and another, and another. She wanders closer and closer in a trance, and within minutes she's leaning on the railing that squares off the ice, tilted so far atop it that she might topple over at any moment.

It's not enough. No glimpse of her is ever enough.

(She briefly wonders if this is what the beginnings of a drug addiction feel like, when amplified tenfold.)

Casey must have gazed, dumbfounded and awestruck, for a good half hour, before her vision, and her mind, and her goals suddenly zap back to her like a stretched rubber band and Zoe stands a foot away on the other side of the railing—hand on hip, eyes half-obscured by a jagged fringe that reminds her of glass shards—staring at her with an unimpressed smirk.

"Don't you have anything better to do than pretend to be a lost puppy?" Zoe asks, and though it's very clearly supposed to insult her, it could almost pass for genuine curiosity out of this one's mouth.

"I'm not— I wasn't—" Casey tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "I'm working on a science project. For school."

Her lips curve. (Casey spends just a moment too long lingering on them.) " _Sure_  you are. Come to dissect me for biology class, are you?"

" _Actually_ , I was studying your movements for unified aerodynamic principles," she says, nodding to her notebook. Her arms cross and her eyes narrow. "There's gonna be formulas and conclusions and practical applications—the whole bit. If I'm successful, which I  _will_  be, and you beg me, which I'd  _love_  to watch, I may even let you test my findings out," she says, not without a degree of cold superiority. Her nose scrunches up before she says, "I saw you land that axel; you could use the help."

"Oh-ho-ho, look out, folks, this one's got some spine!" Zoe grins, and rests her elbows on the railing right next to Casey's, leaning in conspiratorially. "So you were leering at me because, what, physics?"

"I wasn't  _leering_ ," she defends reflexively. Then her face smoothes out and sours all at once. "If I was  _captivated_ , that's only because I wanted to be a skater when I was a kid. It's cheesy, but anyone who actually managed to get there is automatically my hero."

Zoe's eyeroll could whisk batter. "So? Put some skates on, be your own hero for a night."

Casey recoils. "…What?"

(It's not like she's never thought about it, but she has plans and a daily schedule; there's very little time in there for childish whims.)

"Oh my god, don't get sappy on me talking about life-long dreams or anything," Zoe says at her completely blanked face. "We have a lot of skates lying around and a handful of excellent skaters who'll be  _thrilled_  to wallow in their brilliance while giving you some pointers. Spoilers: this stuff can get  _kinda_  boring when it's all you do every day." She pats the blonde's hand with just a tad of condescension. (A jitter runs through it.) Then she adds, with a shrug, "Plus, you're kinda cute—in that corruptible cartoon deer kind of way. I wanna see you fall on your butt. Like Bambi!"

Casey wants to tell her that she has to get back, to make headway in the project that may very well secure her future, to get away from Zoe's dark lips and Zoe's sparkling eyes, and the subtle definition of muscle ridging Zoe's black-clad arms—for fear that if she spent any more time gazing at them, she would never forget, and forgetting is  _exactly_  what she should be doing. (She barely has time for friends, let alone… Let alone… Oh, fuck, she's gonna be dreaming about her tonight, isn't she.)

Instead, a sudden, unplanned excitement rushes through her at the thought of fulfilling even some small part of her childhood dream, and maybe she's  _earned_  a little whim every now and again, and so she quirks one eyebrow at Zoe as the corner of her mouth tugs up. "If you think I'm wide-eyed and impressionable and I have never broken anyone's jaw, then you're the worst judge of character I've ever met."

A snort bursts out of the other girl, which turns into careful consideration and measured intrigue as her eyes run up and down the blonde's figure. " _Worst?_  Wow," she mutters. "Prove me wrong, then—but, honey, I don't think you've met the seas of people who honest-to-god believe I'm into boys." A hint of the devil lies in her smile.

Something flutters buried deep in Casey's stomach. "You can take second place, then," she offers easily.

"Fine, but I'm not making any acceptance speeches," the girl declares, stepping from ice to carpet, and gestures expectantly to the nearest side door. "So, do you plan on standing there for  _another_  half hour?" she asks. "Get your skating shoes on, cupcake, and let me see if I can leer at you half as convincingly as you 'admired' my 'aerodynamics'."

"I wasn't— Oh, whatever," Casey surrenders. "Lead the way."

Pleased, Zoe swivels on her heel and struts away. "That's better; follow me, uh…" Her fingers rise up above her shoulder, linger—then snap. "Kelly?" she guesses.

"Casey."

And when she watches Zoe's back (and the ruffles on her skirt, and the legs underneath) disappear into a wonderland of equipment and skill, when her heart starts pounding as she takes the first step onto ice in years, when Zoe takes her hand and glides with her in infinity eights—when she gets introduced to the other girls, Vanessa and Jade, and realizes that the latter is her estranged childhood best friend—college applications are just about the  _furthest_  thing from her mind.

* * *

 

Later that day Zoe takes her aside and asks, "Have you ever thought about taking it up seriously? I mean, like, starting now as opposed to whenever you couldn't as a child that traumatized you for life or whatever," she adds, gesticulating. "You're a pretty quick learner and you've got a spark. If you really wanted to, I bet you could. Maybe even compete."

Casey then balks and goes red in the face, and says, "No, no. That's… No. It's not in my plans for my life. No," and four months later, she slides, anxious and exhilarated, indigo skirt trailing behind her, onto the agonizingly smooth ice at her first regional figure skating competition.

* * *

 

" _It's perfectly normal to be nervous your first time," Zoe had said ten minutes earlier, leaning against the side of the packed bleachers, arms crossed, a wicked grin on her face. Only half the competitors had already done their shorts, but a good deal of them had fallen._

_Casey had barely spared her a glance between mentally running through her program. "I'm not nervous," she'd said._

" _Oh, I know," Zoe had replied easily, noncommittally inspecting the lightning bolts the blonde had insisted on painting on her black nails the previous day. The four of them had had a sleepover_ — _one that ended several hours before midnight. "I'm just saying, in case you wanna try being like everybody else for once—it'd be perfectly normal." She'd dazzled with one of her toothy smirks, and Casey had made a mental note not to look at Zoe and her stupid perfect mouth until the competition was over. Couldn't afford distractions._

" _Why would I want to be like everyone else when I get to be me?" she'd countered with a wink, smoothing out her updo once more._

" _Also a good point," Zoe had allowed with a shrug, then: "Oh, here, let me." She'd taken a single step to the other girl's back and taken her hair into her long, quick fingers. A strand tucked here, another loosened there, and a few sparkly bobby pins to keep it all in place._

_Casey had tried to focus away from the tingling on her neck as the brown hands had brushed against it, light as feathers. "Isn't this technically helping out the competition?" she'd asked instead. "You could be sabotaging me, for all I know."_

" _Why?" She'd felt the girl lean forward, until their cheeks were almost touching. There'd been a grin in Zoe's voice as she'd said, "Don't you_ trust _me, Blevins?" She'd been so close. If Casey had turned her head just slightly, her lips would've wound up flush against a set of another. As it was, Zoe had leaned back and released her with a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Besides, I already aced my turn and, as good as you are, you have no shot in_ hell _at dethroning me, sweetheart."_

" _Humph. We'll see about_ that _."_

" _Still adorable," Zoe had announced with an amused tint to the words. "Remember, your next movement should always evolve out of your previous one, and if you fall on your butt, don't stress; it's a very cute butt—I'm sure everyone will love the view." She'd given it a light, friendly slap for emphasis. "Good luck, and all that garbage."_

* * *

 

Casey's never been one to perform in front of people. (Not when they're aware of the performance, anyway.) With head hidden in her books and her goals, she's passed up all the plays and recitals and talent shows that had come her way. Everything she's ever done, she did for herself—or for her parents. Intrusive eyes were always unwelcome, always something foreign.

So she supposes that's why it had never occurred to her what a rush it would be—to perform such an intricate, demanding dance in front of thousands of people hanging onto her every movement, the whole gigantic stage all to herself.

It passes by in a blur, every action nearly instinctive after months of training—and just like that, it's over.

Suddenly she's standing in the very middle of the rink, arms coiled above her, as the crowd cheers and claps and throws flowers in her general direction. Her heart won't stop pounding; the cold skin on her cheeks coats a burning inner furnace. She feels free for perhaps the first time in her life.

Dazed, she makes her way off the ice, faraway faces blurring together in her peripheral vision.

Her body feels alive. She might very well float up to the ceiling from pure excitement alone. It's not the weight of pressure, of succeeding,that's been released—though surely that must play a part, too; it's something deeper, grander than that. She recalls the first time she'd seen Zoe skate, which she's done a hundred times since, and somehow it's a similar sensation of wanting to chase that moment again and again into eternity. Already, she cannot wait to do her long program. Already, she wishes she could do the short over again.

(Not to do it better. Just to  _do_  it.)

The girl steps onto the carpet and vaguely reaches for her skate guards, chest lurching from within and body seeming to vibrate. She feels too real in this moment; everything looks so much sharper than usual. It's the first time she's recognized a turning point of her life while still in it.

She thought she'd been serious about pursuing this before, but it's clear now that those were only unfulfilled dreams gone after for satisfaction and little else—that somewhere in the back of her mind she'd expected it all to fall flat within a few months, and then she would return to her  _real_  life. It's vital and urgent now, this need, and she can feel in her very bones that she won't give any of that up until her dying day, that she'll go however far the pursuit of greatness takes her.

"Here," says a voice alarmingly close to her ear. A set of green dollar bills lie in Zoe's outstretched hand as she swings her other casually around Casey's shoulders.

She doesn't say anything. Can't even muster up the will to wonder what's happening. Even hearing another person  _speak_  feels so weird right now.

Almost certainly with an eyeroll, Zoe smushes the money into the blonde's loose fist. "Irina Ballerina bet me fifty bucks you'd mess up your program," she explains, nodding to a nearby corner where, every time Casey's glanced over, Vanessa has been animatedly talking to a skater wholly unfit to wield that name. With jet black hair braided tightly to her skull on one side and left loose on the other, makeup mimicking a black eye and a split lip, the sleeves of her outfit ending in what strongly resemble brass knuckles, she had almost succeeded in her attempt to intimidate Casey hours earlier.

Somehow it's that—that little victory, the normal human rivalry—that pulls her back to reality.

"Oh, Irina doesn't know me at  _all_ ," she announces with a satisfied grin, then peeks down. "…Wait, this is the  _entire_  fifty."

"Yeah, well, I figured you did most of the work," Zoe says with a shrug. Her shoulder bumps into the side of Casey's jaw. "All  _I_  did was know you.  _Exceptionally_  well," she adds, cocking her head to face her. "Think of it as a thanks for rewarding my faith in you—or, I don't care, a symbolic trophy for your first successful outing of what I'm sure will be many. Either way, the look on her face when you landed that triple was  _all_  the winning I needed."

She has very little trouble believing that. Despite the girl's rough appearance, Casey's learned that Irina is one of the strongest, and most arrogant, skaters in the entire state. Her short program had featured a lot of kicking and punching—and had, generally, resembled a one-sided gang fight—but it'd been unquestionably precise and technically difficult, and the crowd had reacted accordingly. (Watching her warm up alongside Vanessa, the smooth, elegant one, had been a particularly strange and illuminating experience.)

"Hah. I wish I could've seen that," she says.

The other girl's cheerful smirk turns devilish, as it so often does. "Jade taped it."

She chuckles, but then warmth blossoms in her stomach and spreads through the rest of her, lips slowly tugging up. " _Thanks_." The word is loaded with much more than that.

"Oh, that's not it," Zoe announces, releasing her. She has a tiara on now for her long program, and her black outfit resembles a night sky, and her eyeshadow is almost the same shade as the blonde's purple dress—and Casey's long since gotten used to the jolt reverberating from her heart every time she catches a glimpse of the girl. "I was saving this for after the day was over as either a consolation prize or the cherry on top your sundae of a life, but you did so well just now I simply can't contain myself."

Casey straightens; her eyes dart down to the other's empty hands. "What is it?"

And right there, in front of parents and strangers and some local news crews, Zoe frames Casey's face gently in her hands and pulls her closer and  _kisses_  her.

The world goes quiet and motionless around them. Casey's hands lift to her crush's wrists, then to her shoulders, and to her waist, too tied to the jittery chaos reigning within to settle anywhere. Her lips curve as she moves them, suddenly acutely aware of just how many sensory receptors her body possesses. And only when Zoe stills and lingers there for a moment of perfect peace before pulling back does she let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Somehow she feels even more light-headed now than she had on the ice.

Casey feels a smile gradually blossoming; she doesn't try to stop it, but she's not very certain she could. "Why did you do that now?"

"The better question is, why didn't  _you_?" Zoe says, wagging a finger as though everything were exactly the same as always—but there's heat in her cheeks and a visible pounding in the pulse on her neck, and she doesn't seem to have noticed her smeared lip gloss. "You're supposed to be the one going after everything you want without waiting for destiny to bother coming around—and you can't tell me you don't want  _me_."

"Priorities," she replies with a teasing grin, fingers sneakily intertwining themselves with the other girl's down below. "If I'm gonna be a professional athlete  _and_  a Physics prodigy—which I fully intend to—I can't be getting distracted by having a  _girlfriend_ , too."

Zoe raises one amused eyebrow. "Oh,  _please_. We spend half the day every day together anyway; who cares if we spend large portions of it making out instead?"

For an answer, Casey only leans forward and kisses her again—it's shorter this time, no longer a testing of the waters, but somehow it feels all the more daring for it. "I guess not me," she says, as if it were something entirely beyond her control and not what she'd decided, somewhere deep down, the first time she'd seen her skate. "Seriously, though, what about me made you unable to wait a few hours to do that? Now I'm gonna be thinking about it and wishing I could do it again—and probably  _doing_  it again," she adds with a grin, "when I should be preparing to compete." Suspicion coats her voice by the end.

Zoe quirks her lips innocently. "Well, I mean, it's not like I know you exceptionally well," she says, "so that I could, uhm, predict this reaction and aim for it because, say, you did alarmingly and threateningly well on your short. …Or anything." She gives an exaggerated shrug, looking the pinnacle of adorable. Then the facade fades to make way for her usual careless smirk. "And yes, I say that fully aware that you'll never be able to  _really_  tell for certain whether I'm kidding or not."

"I'm gonna kick your ass for that," Casey announces through a chuckle, and glances back to the ice at the crowd's loud groan. Someone has fallen. "I don't care if it's today or a month from now, or two years from now, but I'm gonna  _totally_  kick your ass."

"Can't wait," Zoe says, exactly as expected, and leans closer to lay her hand on the other's waist. It travels lower in almost a caress, until she gives her a light squeeze and pulls back with a wink. "Just as long as it's not the  _only_  thing you do to it."


End file.
